IRGC Spokesman Denies Soleimani’s Threat of ‘Severe Revenge’ Against Fakhrizadeh Assassination Perpetrators
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman on Sunday, December 30, denied a tweet by Hossein Soleimani, commander of the force, in which he stated that “severe revenge and punishment” against those who killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear scientist, had been “put on the agenda.”
Soleimani wrote on December 27 on a Twitter account attributed to him that “enemies of the Iranian nation, especially the designers, perpetrators and supporters of this crime, should know that such crimes will not weaken the determination and will of Iranians to continue this glorious and empowering path.”
He added: “Severe revenge and punishment against them has been put on the agenda.”
The IRGC commander’s tweet received more than 8,000 likes and over 1,000 retweets.
Now, the Tasnim news agency quoted Ramezan Sharif, the IRGC spokesman, as saying that “news attributed to the IRGC commander-in-chief in cyberspace regarding how to avenge the perpetrators of Fakhrizadeh’s assassination” is being denied.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who had been dubbed Iran’s “mysterious man” and nuclear scientist, was killed on December 27 following a deadly operation in Absard, Damavand. Several Iranian officials and media outlets immediately pointed the finger at Israel, which has been repeatedly accused in the past of assassinating the Islamic Republic’s nuclear scientists.
Iranian officials and media outlets have presented contradictory accounts of the details of the operation while simultaneously displaying contradictory responses to how to respond to the act.
In the latest account of Friday’s operation, the Fars news agency, close to the IRGC, reported that firing at Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s vehicle was carried out using “automatic weapons” and “no human agent was present at the assassination site.”
According to the news agency, the entire operation took “three minutes.”
The publication of this report comes as the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence issued a statement saying that “clues about the perpetrators of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s assassination have been obtained.”
The security ministry, under Hassan Rouhani, also promised that supplementary information would be announced “subsequently.”
Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy chief for international affairs of the Judiciary, also said that “in addition to domestic capacity, we will use all international capacities for justice, investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators and masterminds of martyr Fakhrizadeh’s assassination.”
He described Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s killing as “the punishment of a nation.”
On the other hand, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization, has denied the statement of Javad Karimi Qadousi, a member of parliament, about talks between the Agency’s officials and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in the past.
Kamalvandi said: “This is fundamentally not true. Fakhrizadeh had no meetings or talks with the former director-general, inspectors or officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
On December 28, Javad Karimi Qadousi attacked Hassan Rouhani in a tweet and addressed him saying that “during your presidency of the executive branch and at the insistence of the enemy and your personal emphasis, our nuclear scientist Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh met with Yukiya Amano, the former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
He warned Iran’s president that “you will certainly one day have to answer in a court of justice for placing the country’s assets so easily at the disposal of Mossad spies and assassins.”
This claim had previously been met with a denial by the deputy chief of communications and public relations of the presidential office, and Alireza Moezi wrote in a tweet that “years of insistence on lying is not normal at all.”
Source: Radio Farda
